US sues Huawei leaders and accuses their company of stealing rival secrets | Technology

Meng, daughter of the founder of Huawei, was arrested in December at the request of the US government. She is still on parole after paying a $ 1 million bail.

This is another step in the escalation of tension between American and Chinese smartphone companies. Huawei is the subject of an investigation in this country, suspected of having sold telecommunications equipment that can be used by China for spying purposes.

In addition, China and the United States are waging a trade war in which billions of dollars of tariffs on products have already been imposed.

The charges against Meng were made in a New York court and, according to the US court, refer to operations over a decade ago.

The executive, Huawei itself and a subsidiary in Hong Kong, Skycom, have been accused of bank fraud and conspiracy in the business field with Iran while this country was still under the trade sanctions.

At the time of the arrest of the director, Huawei said that Skycom is an independent company. And China has described the detention of the executive as a "violation of human rights".

Each of the crimes charged against Meng is punishable by up to 30 years.

Formal indictment acts as an additional step for the US government to file an extradition request from the director. The deadline expires on the 30th.

Subsequently, if the application is accepted, a hearing period begins and the executive's trip to the United States may still take months.

Also in Washington, the government also denounced the fact that Huawei had stolen secrets from the American company T-Mobile and offered bonuses to employees who bring technology to their rivals.

The lawsuit refers to a robot used by T-Mobile to test smartphones. The telecommunications company itself had sued Huawei and its US unit in 2014 in Seattle for the same reason.

Huawei owns 15% of the global mobile phone market and is currently the second largest producer. The company has been banned in several Western countries, which fear that Beijing will oblige it to disclose trade secrets and other information that could jeopardize the national security of third parties.

The United States, New Zealand and Australia have banned the use of technology and equipment of the company for security reasons. Canada, Germany, Japan and South Korea submitted an evaluation to Huawei.

The company denies the allegations and insists that she is a private company, with no control of the Chinese government over its operations.

Shortly after Meng's arrest, China arrested two Canadian citizens under the allegation of "risk to national security".